Nucleotide and amino acid sequences from Bacillus thuringiensis and uses thereof

ABSTRACT

Nucleic acid sequences and insecticidal proteins encoded from these sequences are provided. Insecticidal proteins encoded by large operons situated within the primary sequence of large extrachromosomal plasmids present in  Bacillus thuringiensis  are disclosed. Methods for making transgenic plants resistant to insect infestation as a result of expression of one or more of these proteins is disclosed.  Bacillus thuringiensis  strains exhibiting broad host range insecticidal specificity are also disclosed.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of priority to U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/598,742, filed Aug. 4, 2004.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to nucleic acid sequences from Bacillus thuringiensis, and, in particular, to DNA sequences that encode proteins from B. thuringiensis strains EG5858, EG4332 and EG4096 that, particularly when expressed together, exhibit insecticidal properties. In addition, proteins and fragments thereof, antibodies capable of binding specifically to the proteins, and methods of using the disclosed nucleic acid molecules, proteins, protein fragments and antibodies are disclosed. Protection from insect pest infestation either as a result of the in planta expression of the proteins disclosed herein, as a composition of matter that can be applied to the seeds as a seed coating or seed treatment, or as a pharmaceutical composition for treatment of insect pest infestation of animals or otherwise are contemplated.

BACKGROUND

The present invention relates to nucleic acid sequences from Bacillus thuringiensis, and, in particular, to genomic DNA sequences that encode insecticidal proteins from B. thuringiensis strains EG5858, EG4332 and EG4096. In addition, proteins and fragments thereof and antibodies capable of binding specifically to the proteins and methods of using the disclosed nucleic acid molecules, proteins, protein fragments and antibodies are encompassed by the present invention.

The gram-positive bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis is well known as a source of insecticidal proteins, most of which accumulate in crystalline inclusions during sporulation (Crickmore et al., Microbiol. Mol. Biol. Rev. 62:807-813, 1998; de Maagd, et al., Annu. Rev. Genet. 37:409-433, 2003; Schnepf et al., Microbiol. Mol. Biol. Rev. 62:775-806, 1998). These crystal proteins, or Cry proteins, are diverse and include distinct protein families as judged by amino acid sequence analysis and structural information derived from X-ray crystallography. A comprehensive listing of known BT insecticidal proteins, genes, and information about the nomenclature associated with these genes and proteins can be accessed at the web site biols.susx.ac.uk/home/Neil_Crickmore/Bt/index.htmL. A variety of crystalline Bt insecticidal proteins are known. These proteins collectively display a wide range of activity against insect pests, including those from the orders Lepidoptera, Coleoptera, Diptera, Hemiptera, Hymenoptera, and Heteroptera. In addition to the delta-endotoxin crystal proteins, B. thuringiensis strains also produce secreted insecticidal proteins that are expressed during vegetative growth, including VIP1-, Vip2-, and Vip3-type proteins, TIC901 and related proteins, and TIC900 and related proteins.

The use of Cry proteins in agriculture for insect control has been advanced by the development of transgenic crops. Transgenic crops expressing B. thuringiensis cry genes have enjoyed an unprecedented rate of adoption by farmers in the United States and elsewhere since their introduction in the 1990s. Worldwide acreage of all transgenic crops in 2002 was reported to be approximately 58.7 million hectares, or 145 million acres, representing a 12% increase over year 2001 acreage (James C., ISAAA Briefs No. 27. ISAAA, Ithaca, N.Y., 2002). The long term success of this transgenic approach to insect control will depend on appropriate insect resistance management (IRM) strategies. An important component of a sustainable IRM strategy is the discovery and deployment of new insecticidal proteins with distinct modes-of-action that either prevent or significantly delay the development of widespread resistance among insect pest populations.

Other bacteria besides B. thuringiensis display insecticidal properties that may in part be attributed to insecticidal proteins. The gram-negative bacteria Photorhabdus luminescens, Xenorhabdus nematophilus and related species, Serratia entomophila, Pseudomonas syringae, and Yersinia pestis all express insecticidal proteins. Each of these species have also been shown to produce a large extracellular multi-protein complex consisting primarily of TC proteins (toxin complex). Each of the proteins within the complex individually have generally failed to display insecticidal activity (ffrench-Constant and Bowen, Curr. Opin. Microbiol. 2:284-2880, 1999; ffrench-Constant et al., FEMS Microbiol. Rev. 759:1-24, 2002; Waterfield et al., Trends Microbiol. 9:185-191, 2001). In addition to the tc-like genes, other insect virulence genes such as the mcf genes have been discovered (Waterfield, et al., FEMS Microbiol. Lett. 229:265-270, 2003). The tc homologs and mcf genes could be a valuable source of insect-resistance traits for future transgenic crops because they are unrelated to the B. thuringiensis cry genes and therefore likely exhibit different modes of action. Recently, genes encoding proteins that exhibited similarity to the TC proteins were also identified in a gram-positive bacterium identified as a Paenibacillus species (US Patent Application Publication No. 2004/0110184). Paenibacillus bacteria have been determined to be phylogenetically unrelated with any other bacteria including other aerobic, endospore-forming bacilli based upon rRNA and phenotypic characteristics (Ash et al., Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek 64:253-260, 1993).

There is a continuing need to identify additional genes that encode insecticidal proteins useful in producing insect resistant transgenic plants. With few exceptions, Bt crystalline insecticidal proteins all seem to exhibit a similar structural and functional motif. The proteins generally exhibit a conserved three-dimensional structure based on x-ray crystallographic studies of several members of the Bt delta-endotoxin family. Generally, the proteins also exhibit a similar mode of action in that they all bind in a specific fashion to membranes surfaces within the midgut of the larval form of a particular target insect species and subsequently form ion-channel pores that result in a disruption of the membrane potential along the surfaces of the membrane, which generally results in the death or incapacitation of the larval form of the target insect. Transgenic plants expressing these proteins have been demonstrated to be effective in minimizing insect infestation, however, there is a concern that insect populations repeatedly exposed to these insect resistant plants could develop resistance to the Bt toxin produced within the plants. Therefore, there is a need to identify additional insecticidal proteins that are different from the typical Bt insecticidal crystal protein and that exert their insecticidal effects through a mode of action that is also different from the typical Bt insecticidal crystal protein.

Bacillus thuringiensis strains are not known that exhibit insecticidal activity against a diversity of insect targets. Generally, B. thuringiensis strains exhibit insecticidal activity against one or at most two orders of insect species, such as for example, against Dipteran and Lepidopteran insect species. The inventors herein have identified three strains of B. thuringiensis that surprisingly exhibit insecticidal activity against a diversity of insect orders including Lepidoptera, Coleoptera, Diptera, and Hemiptera. Bt insecticidal proteins are known to be expressed from genes located on extrachromosomal megadalton plasmids. It was believed that such broad insecticidal diversity exhibited by these strains was a result of expression of one or more toxin genes located within one or more megadalton plasmids in each of these strains. The inventors herein have identified an operon within one of these strains that contains genes encoding proteins that exhibit similarity to the gram-negative TC proteins. In addition, the genes within the B. thuringiensis operon substantially maintain the order of expression of the gram-negative genes described above.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The invention provides isolated and purified nucleic acid sequences as set forth in SEQ ID NO:1, SEQ ID NO:8, SEQ ID NO:10, SEQ ID NO:12, SEQ ID NO:14, and SEQ ID NO:16 that encode, either alone or in combination, insecticidal proteins. SEQ ID NO:1 comprises an operon encoding insecticidal proteins as set forth in SEQ ID NO:2, SEQ ID NO:3, SEQ ID NO:4, SEQ ID NO:5, and SEQ ID NO:6 referred to respectively herein as TIC813, TIC814, TIC816, TIC817, and TIC818. SEQ ID NO:2 is a 1088 amino acid sequence encoded from an open reading frame as set forth in SEQ ID NO:1 from about nucleotide position 1428 through about nucleotide position 4691. SEQ ID NO:3 is a 1205 amino acid sequence encoded from an open reading frame as set forth in SEQ ID NO:1 from about nucleotide position 4722 through about nucleotide position 8336. SEQ ID NO:4 is a 1458 amino acid sequence encoded from an open reading frame as set forth in SEQ ID NO:1 from about nucleotide position 8400 through about nucleotide position 12773. SEQ ID NO:5 is a 921 amino acid sequence encoded from an open reading frame as set forth in SEQ ID NO:1 from about nucleotide position 12981 through about nucleotide position 15743. SEQ ID NO:6 is a 927 amino acid sequence encoded from an open reading frame as set forth in SEQ ID NO:1 from about nucleotide position 15803 through about nucleotide position 18583. SEQ ID NO:9, referred to herein as TIC815, is a 1205 amino acid sequence encoded from an open reading frame as set forth in SEQ ID NO:8 from about nucleotide position 1 through about nucleotide position 3615. SEQ ID NO:11, referred to herein as TIC904, is a 1081 amino acid sequence encoded from an open reading frame as set forth in SEQ ID NO:10 from about nucleotide position 1 through about nucleotide position 3243. SEQ ID NO:13, referred to herein as TIC905, is a 1203 amino acid sequence encoded from an open reading frame as set forth in SEQ ID NO:12 from about nucleotide position 1 through about nucleotide position 3609. SEQ ID NO:15, referred to herein as TIC906, is a 1455 amino acid sequence encoded from an open reading frame as set forth in SEQ ID NO:14 from about nucleotide position 1 through about nucleotide position 4365. SEQ ID NO:17, referred to herein as TIC912, is a 927 amino acid sequence encoded from an open reading frame as set forth in SEQ ID NO:16 from about nucleotide position 1 through about nucleotide position 2784. Purified and isolated amino acid sequences are provided comprising the amino acid sequences as set forth in SEQ ID NO's:2-6, SEQ ID NO:9, SEQ ID NO:11, SEQ ID NO:13, SEQ ID NO:15, and SEQ ID NO:17, and insecticidal fragments thereof. These proteins, alone or in combination, are toxic to a wide range of insect species including but not limited to insects of the order Coleoptera, Lepidoptera, Diptera, and Hemiptera.

In another embodiment, the present invention provides a substantially purified protein isolated from B. thuringiensis cell or media from in which the cell was grown, comprising an amino acid sequence that exhibits at least from about 70% to about 100% amino acid sequence identity to an amino acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NO:2, SEQ ID NO:3, SEQ ID NO:4, SEQ ID NO:5, SEQ ID NO:6, SEQ ID NO:9, SEQ ID NO:11, SEQ ID NO:13, SEQ ID NO:15, and SEQ ID NO:17.

In a further embodiment, the invention also relates to a biologically pure culture of a B. thuringiensis bacterium selected from the group consisting of strain EG5858, strain EG4332, and strain EG4096.

The invention also provides a vector comprising a nucleotide sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NO:1, SEQ ID NO:8, SEQ ID NO:10, SEQ ID NO:12, SEQ ID NO:14, and SEQ ID NO:16 or the complement thereof.

In yet a further embodiment, the invention provides plants and plant cells that have been transformed with a nucleotide sequence encoding a protein as set forth in any of SEQ ID NO:2, SEQ ID NO:3, SEQ ID NO:4, SEQ ID NO:5, SEQ ID NO:6, SEQ ID NO:9, SEQ ID NO:11, SEQ ID NO:13, SEQ ID NO:15, and SEQ ID NO:17 and insecticidal fragments thereof.

In yet a further embodiment, the present invention also provides a method for producing a transgenic plant resistant to infestation by insect pests selected from the orders Coleoptera, Lepidoptera, Diptera, and Hemiptera, as a result of increased expression levels of one or more proteins selected from the group consisting of TIC813, TIC814, TIC815, TIC816, TIC817, TIC818, TIC904, TIC905, TIC906 and TIC912, and insecticidal fragments thereof or chimeras thereof.

Another embodiment of the present invention is the provision for antibodies that bind specifically to epitopes presented only by any of the proteins as set forth in TIC813, TIC814, TIC815, TIC816, TIC817, TIC818, TIC904, TIC905, TIC906 and TIC912 and homologs and form immunological complexes. Antibodies can be used for identifying the presence of any one of the proteins or homolog, for purifying any one of the proteins or homolog, for identifying a nucleotide sequence from which any one of the proteins or homolog is being expressed, and for use in kits designed to allow the detection of any one of the proteins or homolog or the detection of a nucleotide sequence expressing any one of the proteins or homolog.

Another embodiment of the present invention provides for host cells transformed to contain a polynucleotide encoding an insecticidal protein of the present invention or an insecticidal fragment thereof. Preferably the nucleotide sequences of the present invention are modified to improve expression of the proteins of the present invention in a preferred host cell. The host cell of the present invention is selected from the group consisting of a bacterial cell, a fungal cell, an algal cell and a plant cell. Expression in a plant cell can comprise expression to achieve accumulation of the insecticidal protein in the cytoplasm, or can result in the insecticidal protein being accumulated into a subcellular organelle such as a plastid, chloroplast, or mitochondria. Alternatively the insecticidal protein of the present invention or insecticidal fragments thereof could be localized to the protein secretion machinery of the particular host cell and result in an accumulation of the protein product out side of the cell and into the extracellular spaces surrounding the cell.

An additional embodiment of the present invention provides a method for controlling infestation of a plant by an insect species. Preferably a pesticidal amount of an insecticidal protein of the present invention or insectidal fragment thereof is provided for consumption by the insect pest in the diet of the insect. The diet can consist of a plant part that the insect normally feeds upon, such as a plant tissue or plant cell. The insecticidal protein or insecticidal fragment thereof can be provided in a composition that is applied to the surface of the plant tissue, plant part, or plant cell or more preferably can be produced by the protein synthesis machinery of the cell and, as described above, accumulated within the plant cell or secreted outside of the plant cell, so long as the amount of the protein toxin provided is an insecticidal amount sufficient to inhibit the insect pest from further feeding, or to inhibit the further growth and development of the insect pest, or to cause mortality to the insect pest. The diet provided to the insect can also be an artificial diet that contains the toxin protein uniformly distributed within or topically applied to the exposed surface(s) of the diet substrate, or included as a concentration gradient within or topically applied to the exposed surface(s) of the diet substrate. The insecticidal toxin or fragment thereof is derived from a nucleotide sequence that is encoded in B. thuringiensis by a nucleotide sequence that hybridizes under stringent conditions to the nucleotide sequence substantially complementary to any of SEQ ID NO:1, SEQ ID NO:8, SEQ ID NO:10, SEQ ID NO:12, SEQ ID NO:14, and SEQ ID NO:16 or the complement thereof.

Kits for detecting the presence of the nucleotide sequences of the present invention, as well as probes, primers, analogues and derivatives of the same, are also contemplated. Such kits contain one or more nucleotide sequences each for use either as a probe for detecting the presence of a nucleotide sequence encoding an insecticidal protein of the present invention or fragment thereof or related nucleotide sequences, or for use in combination with one or more other probes or primers included in such kit for amplifying one or more sequences of the present invention or a related nucleotide sequence. Such kits could also or alternatively contain antibody specifically binding to one or more peptides or the proteins of the present invention, as well as reagents for use with the probe or antibody, and the kits would also contain control samples for use in ensuring that the nucleotides or peptides identified with the probe and or antibody and reagents were functioning according to the manufacturers' instructions. All of the reagents necessary for carrying out the methods of identification of either nucleotide sequences or peptides would be packaged together in a kit along with instructions for use. An exemplary kit will contain a nucleotide sequence derived from a tic813, tic814, tic815, tic816, tic817, tic818, tic904, tic905, tic906 and/or tic912 or related protein coding sequence along with a sample of nucleotide sequence amplification primers, together with the reagents necessary for carrying out an amplification reaction, all packaged together in the kit.

It is therefore contemplated that the compositions and methods disclosed by the present invention will provide many advantages over the prior art including those specifically outlined above. In addition, the present invention provides an entirely new class of insecticidal proteins and nucleotide sequences encoding these proteins that were identified and isolated from B. thuringiensis and that were not previously known in the art. Other specific embodiments of the invention are disclosed in the following detailed description.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 shows a schematic map of the EG5858 operon sequence encoding insecticidal proteins TIC813, TIC814, TIC816, TIC817, and TIC818, along with information below each gene position about the extent to which each protein exhibits similarity at the amino acid sequence level to a corresponding Photorhabdus species homolog.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

The inventors herein disclose the identification of nucleotide sequences encoding a new class of Bacillus thuringiensis insecticidal proteins that until recently, homologs of which were only known to be produced by gram negative bacterial species. TC proteins known previously from Photorhabdus and Xenhorabdus species in particular were characterized as being expressed from large polycistronic operons within the chromosomal genome of these gram negative bacterial species. The TC proteins have generally only been demonstrated to exhibit insecticidal properties when three or more of the proteins are expressed together. These proteins are known to form large extracellular complexes when expressed from their natural hosts. Typically these proteins are expressed from genes that previously were only known to be present in gram negative bacterial species, and in particular, in bacterial species that were known to exist in nature in a saprophytic relationship with entomopathogenic nematode species or free living bacteria such as Serratia and Yersinia species that are well known entomopathogenic species. Therefore, it was surprising to find an operon, genes, and proteins encoded from these genes that exhibited any similarity to such genes and proteins from gram negative bacterial species in a species as distantly related as Bacillus thuringiensis.

The genes and proteins of the present invention can be identified from any species of Bacillus thuringiensis, or any closely related Bacillus species such as Bacillus popilleae, Bacillus cerus, Bacillus subtilis, and Bacillus megaterium for example. Identification of a strain of a Bacillus that exhibits insecticidal activity against a diversity of target insects, in particular across several orders of insecta, provides one means for selecting a B. thuringiensis strain that may contain genes that hybridize to the sequences disclosed herein, and that encode insecticidal proteins.

Bacillus thuringiensis strains that exhibit insecticidal activity against a diversity of insect targets are not generally known. Typically, B. thuringiensis strains exhibit insecticidal activity against one or at most two orders of insect species, such as for example, against Dipteran and Lepidopteran insect species. The inventors herein have identified three strains of B. thuringiensis that surprisingly exhibit insecticidal activity against a diversity of insect orders including Lepidoptera, Coleoptera, Diptera, and Hemiptera. Bt insecticidal proteins are known to be expressed from genes located on extrachromosomal megadalton plasmids. It was believed that such broad insecticidal diversity exhibited by these strains was a result of expression of one or more toxin genes located within one or more megadalton plasmids in each of these strains. The inventors identified an operon within one of these strains that contains genes encoding proteins that exhibit similarity to the gram-negative TC proteins. In addition, the genes within the B. thuringiensis operon substantially maintain the order of expression of the gram-negative genes described above.

The inventors herein first purified extrachromosomal megadalton plasmids from the Bt strains EG5858, EG4332, and EG4096. These strains have each been deposited on Aug. 6, 2004 with the NRRL International Depositary Authority according to the Budapest Treaty, and provided with the strain deposit designations NRRL-B-30760, NRRL-B-30759, and NRRL-B-30758 respectively. The isolated megadalton plasmids were used to construct libraries in cloning vectors (high to medium copy number plasmids known in the art) and the sequences of the megadalton plasmid DNA's that were inserted into the cloning vectors were determined using a high throughput sequencing effort. Sequences identified in this way were analyzed for the presence of open reading frames, and these were then compared using typical genomics BLASTX methods to identify similar amino acid sequences present in the art within various databases. It was not unexpected to find an abundance of crystal protein coding sequences. However, a more interesting group of sequences were identified with top BLASTX hits that corresponded to Photorhabdus TC insecticidal sequences known previously to only be present in gram negative bacteria. While the Bt sequences derived from megadalton plasmid DNA's were at that stage of discovery only preliminary, it was clear from the number of sequences that were being identified within a plasmid library from EG5858 that additional sequence information from up and down stream of the sequences identified in the BLASTX searches may provide further information about whether these sequences were the result of individual sequences randomly dispersed within the Bt megadalton plasmid sequence, or whether, like the arrangement of the genes encoding the TC proteins in Photorhabdus, the genes were tightly linked and perhaps even within a common operon.

Additional sequencing and alignment revealed that several of the genes, in particular the genes encoding the TIC813, TIC814, TIC816, TIC817, and TIC818 proteins were indeed linked as part of an operon or gene cluster as set forth in SEQ ID NO:1. SEQ ID NO:1 corresponded to a large contiguous sequence assembled from a multitude of sequences first identified from the library sequencing efforts, followed up with sequencing out from the ends of each of those sequences to identify regions of overlapping identity either using inverse thermal amplification or chromosomal walking type methods. SEQ ID NO:1 consists of 20,944 consecutive nucleotides within one of the megadalton plasmids present in Bt strain EG5858. SEQ ID NO:1 contains at least five open reading frames that appear to be a part of a large operon expressing proteins that likely assemble outside of the Bt cell into a complex that exhibits broad insecticidal bioactivity. SEQ ID NO:2 corresponds to a 1,088 amino acid sequence encoded from an open reading frame as set forth in SEQ ID NO:1 from about nucleotide position 1,428 through about nucleotide position 4,691. SEQ ID NO:3 corresponds to a 1,205 amino acid sequence encoded from an open reading frame as set forth in SEQ ID NO:1 from about nucleotide position 4,722 through about nucleotide position 8,336. SEQ ID NO:4 corresponds to a 1,458 amino acid sequence encoded from an open reading frame as set forth in SEQ ID NO:1 from about nucleotide position 8,400 through about nucleotide position 12,773. SEQ ID NO:5 corresponds to a 921 amino acid sequence encoded from an open reading frame as set forth in SEQ ID NO:1 from about nucleotide position 12,981 through about nucleotide position 15,743. SEQ ID NO:6 corresponds to a 927 amino acid sequence encoded from an open reading frame as set forth in SEQ ID NO:1 from about nucleotide position 15,803 through about nucleotide position 18,583. SEQ ID NO:7 corresponds to an amino acid sequence that has not bee fully characterized because the 3′ end of the open reading frame has not yet been identified. SEQ ID NO:7, referred to herein as TICXAX, corresponds to an amino acid sequence deduced from the open reading frame present at nucleotide sequence position 19,886 through the end of the sequence as set forth in SEQ ID NO:1. A BLAST comparison of the amino acid sequence as set forth in SEQ ID NO:7 resulted in a best hit with a protein known only from Bacillus cereus strain ATCC10987 and referred to in GenBank as AAS45028.1. The B. cereus protein exhibited about 77% amino acid sequence identity to the TICXAX protein. No known function has been associated with the B. cereus protein. However, the B. cereus protein was also derived from an extrachromosomal plasmid, and likely could be associated with a gene cluster similar to that observed in strain EG5858. Other less related sequence hits based on the BLASTP comparison resulted in proteins exhibiting a lesser similarity to the TICXAX protein but indicated a relationship to one or more transposase sequences.

BLASTX comparisons of the open reading frames as set forth in SEQ ID NO:1 resulted in the best alignments exhibiting less than about 50% amino acid sequence identity with the deduced amino acids encoded from these open reading frames. All of the best hits corresponded to TC proteins from Photorhabdus species. The best hit corresponding to the amino acid sequence as set forth in SEQ ID NO:2 corresponded to a TcaA protein as set forth in GenBank Accession No. AAC38623, but exhibited only about 39% amino acid sequence identity to SEQ ID NO:2. The best hit corresponding to the amino acid sequence as set forth in SEQ ID NO:3 corresponded to a TcaB protein as set forth in GenBank Accession No. AAC38624, but exhibited only about 49% amino acid sequence identity to SEQ ID NO:3. The best hit corresponding to the amino acid sequence as set forth in SEQ ID NO:4 corresponded to a TcaC protein as set forth in GenBank Accession No. AAC38625, but exhibited only about 43% amino acid sequence identity to SEQ ID NO:4. The hit exhibiting the greatest amino acid sequence identity to SEQ ID NO:5 corresponded to a TccC as set forth in GenBank Accession No. AAC38630, but exhibited only about 34% amino acid sequence identity to SEQ ID NO:5. The hit exhibiting the greatest amino acid sequence identity to SEQ ID NO:6 also corresponded to TccC as set forth in GenBank Accession No. AAC38630, but exhibited only about 33% amino acid sequence identity to SEQ ID NO:5.

Libraries were also produced from isolated megadalton plasmids derived from Bt strains EG4332 and EG4096 and the nucleotide sequences of inserted DNA's were obtained and analyzed. One clone from EG4332 provided identical nucleotide sequence information when compared to a clone containing the nucleotide sequence as set forth in SEQ ID NO:1 for the sequence encoding TIC814. Subsequent nucleotide sequence information with respect to the flanking sequences normally linked to this sequence in the native megadalton plasmid from EG4332 revealed that the ORF was identical to that encoding TIC814. This sequence from EG4332 is provided herein as SEQ ID NO:8 and the amino acid sequence deduced from that clone is set forth herein as SEQ ID NO:9.

Sequence analysis of the inserted DNA's from megadalton plasmids derived from EG4096, including BLASTX comparisons of nucleotide sequence databases also revealed numerous sequences that exhibited amino acid sequence identity to Photorhabdus, Serratia entomophila, Xenorhabdus nematophilia, and Yersinia pestis TC proteins. The sequences most closely related to EG4096 sequences included those encoding Photorhabdus TcaA, TcaB, TcaC and TccC proteins. Assembly of several nucleotide sequences that provided the strongest BLASTX hits revealed incomplete open reading frames. Complete open reading frames were subsequently identified from the EG4096 libraries and proteins deduced from these exhibited greatest similarity to the Photorhabdus TC proteins TcaA, TcaB, and TcaC. EG4096 genes corresponding to these homologs were designated as tic904, tic905, tic906 and tic912 (SEQ ID NO:10, SEQ ID NO:12, SEQ ID NO:14 and SEQ ID NO:16, respectively) encoding the insecticidal proteins TIC904, TIC905, TIC906, and TIC912 (SEQ ID NO:11, SEQ ID NO:13, SEQ ID NO:15 and SEQ ID NO:17, respectively). A comparison of the amino acid sequences of the TIC904-906 and TIC912 proteins to the Photorhabdus homologs revealed that none of the proteins exhibited more than about 50% amino acid sequence identity. TIC904 exhibited about 39% amino acid sequence identity to a Photorhabdus TcaA protein (GenBank Accession No. AAC38623). TIC905 exhibited about 50% amino acid sequence identity to a Photorhabdus TcaB protein (GenBank Accession No. AAC38624). TIC906 exhibited about 42% amino acid sequence identity to a Photorhabdus TcaC protein (GenBank Accession No. AAC38625). TIC912 exhibited about 43% amino acid sequence identity to a Photorhabdus TccC3 protein (GenBank Accession No. CAE13262). These three genes encoding the TIC904-906 amino acid sequences were determined to be within a single operon, similar to the size of the operon as set forth in SEQ ID NO:1.

Pairwise sequence comparisons between the proteins encoded by EG4096 genes and proteins encoded by EG5858 genes demonstrated surprising sequence diversity between the Bt homologs. TIC813 appeared to be most closely related to TIC904 yet these only exhibited about 61% amino acid sequence identity. TIC814 appeared to be most closely related to TIC905 yet these exhibited only about 63 amino acid sequence identity. Discounting the identity between TIC814 and TIC815, the strongest identity existed between TIC816 and TIC906 in which these exhibited only about 68% amino acid sequence identity.

The nucleotide sequences of the present invention that encode the proteins of the present invention exhibit from about 60 to about 70% A+T content. Experience has taught that plants ineffectively express such AT rich sequences, and so it is particularly important to ensure that sequences such as these, when intended for use in plants, be modified to remove problematic sequences before transgenic plants are produced that are expected to express the proteins of the present invention. An example of methods for modifying BT nucleotide sequences for improved expression in plants can be found in Fischhoff et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,500,365).

Nucleotide sequences designed for expression in heterologous cell systems require particular promoters that function in the heterologous cell systems. Depending on the application the promoter used to transcribe the expression of the insecticidal protein or proteins may be constitutive, tissue specific or inducible. See U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,858,742 and 5,322,938 which disclose versions of the constitutive e promoter derived from cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV35S), U.S. Pat. No. 5,641,876 which discloses a constitutive rice actin promoter, U.S. Pat. No. 6,429,357 which discloses a constitutive rice actin 2 promoter and intron and U.S. Pat. No. 6,177,611 which discloses constitutive maize promoters. See U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,837,848; 6,437,217 and 6,426,446 which disclose root specific promoters and U.S. Pat. No. 6,433,252 which discloses a maize L3 oleosin promoter. See also U.S. Pat. No. 6,084,089 which discloses cold inducible promoters, U.S. Pat. No. 6,294,714 which discloses light inducible promoters, U.S. Pat. No. 6,140,078 which discloses salt inducible promoters, U.S. Pat. No. 6,252,138 which discloses pathogen inducible promoters and U.S. Patent Application Publication 2004/0123347 A1 which discloses water deficit inducible promoters.

In transformation practice DNA is introduced into only a small percentage of target cells in any one transformation experiment. Marker genes are used to provide an efficient system for identification of those cells that are stably transformed by receiving and integrating a transgenic DNA construct into their genomes. Preferred marker genes provide selective markers which confer resistance to a selective agent, such as an antibiotic or herbicide. Any of the herbicides to which plants of this invention may be resistant are useful agents for selective markers. Potentially transformed cells are exposed to the selective agent. In the population of surviving cells will be those cells where, generally, the resistance-conferring gene is integrated and expressed at sufficient levels to permit cell survival. Cells may be tested further to confirm stable integration of the exogenous DNA. Commonly used selective marker genes include those conferring resistance to antibiotics such as kanamycin (nptII), hygromycin B (aph IV) and gentamycin (aac3 and aacC4) or resistance to herbicides such as glufosinate (bar or pat) and glyphosate (EPSPS). Examples of such selectable are illustrated in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,550,318; 5,633,435; 5,780,708 and 6,118,047, all of which are incorporated herein by reference. Screenable markers which provide an ability to visually identify transformants can also be employed, e.g., a gene expressing a colored or fluorescent protein such as a luciferase or green fluorescent protein (GFP) or a gene expressing a beta-glucuronidase or uidA gene (GUS) for which various chromogenic substrates are known.

Methods and compositions for transforming plants by introducing a recombinant DNA construct into a plant genome in the practice of this invention can include any of the well-known and demonstrated methods. A preferred method of plant transformation is microprojectile bombardment as illustrated in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,015,580 (soy), 5,550,318 (corn), 5,538,880 (corn), 6,153,812 (wheat), 6,160,208 (corn), 6,288,312 (rice) and 6,399,861 (corn). Another preferred method of plant transformation is Agrobacterium-mediated transformation as illustrated in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,159,135 (cotton), 5,824,877 (soy), 5,591,616 (corn) and 6,384,301 (soy). All of the above-described patents disclosing materials and methods for plant transformation are incorporated herein by reference. See also U.S. Patent Application Publication 2003/0167537 A1, incorporated herein by reference, for a description of vectors, transformation methods, and production of transformed Arabidopsis thaliana plants where transcription factors are constitutively expressed by a CaMV35S promoter.

Transformation methods to provide plants with stably-integrated enhanced anti-sense gene suppression DNA constructs are preferably practiced in tissue culture on media and in a controlled environment. “Media” refers to the numerous nutrient mixtures that are used to grow cells in vitro, that is, outside of the intact living organism. Recipient cell targets include, but are not limited to, meristem cells, callus, immature embryos and gametic cells such as microspores, pollen, sperm and egg cells. It is contemplated that any cell from which a fertile plant may be regenerated is useful as a recipient cell. Callus may be initiated from tissue sources including, but not limited to, immature embryos, seedling apical meristems, microspores and the like. Those cells which are capable of proliferating as callus also are recipient cells for genetic transformation. Practical transformation methods and materials for making transgenic plants of this invention, e.g. various media and recipient target cells, transformation of immature embryos and subsequent regeneration of fertile transgenic plants are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,194,636 and 6,232,526 and U.S. application Ser. No. 09/757,089, which are incorporated herein by reference.

The seeds of transgenic plants can be harvested from fertile transgenic plants and used to grow progeny generations of transformed plants of the present invention including hybrid plant lines comprising the recombinant DNA construct expressing one or more of the insecticidal proteins of the present invention.

In addition to direct transformation of a plant with a recombinant DNA construct, transgenic plants can be prepared by crossing a first plant having a recombinant DNA construct with a second plant lacking the construct. For example, recombinant DNA can be introduced into a plant line that is amenable to transformation to produce a transgenic plant which can be crossed with a second plant line to introgress the recombinant DNA into the second plant line.

A transgenic plant with recombinant DNA expressing a protein of the present invention can be crossed with plant line having other recombinant DNA that confers another trait, e.g. yield improvement, herbicide resistance or other pest resistance to produce progeny plants having recombinant DNA that confers both insect resistance derived from the protein(s) of the present invention and the other trait. Typically, in such breeding for combining traits the transgenic plant donating the additional trait is a male line and the transgenic plant carrying the base traits is the female line. The progeny of this cross will segregate such that some of the plant will carry the DNA for both parental traits and some will carry DNA for one parental trait; such plants can be identified by markers associated with parental recombinant DNA Progeny plants carrying DNA for both parental traits can be crossed back into the female parent line multiple times, e.g. usually 6 to 8 generations, to produce a progeny plant with substantially the same genotype as one original transgenic parental line but for the recombinant DNA of the other transgenic parental line.

EXAMPLES Example 1

This example illustrates the selection of Bt strains and the purification of extrachromosomal mega-dalton sized plasmids from Bt strains.

B. thuringiensis strains EG5858, EG4332, and EG4096 are unusual BT strains identified in bioassay screening because they each exhibit significant activity against lepidopteran, coleopteran, dipteran and hemipteran pests. B. thuringiensis strains generally do not exhibit a spectrum of insecticidal bioactivity that extends beyond more than two genera. Some BT insecticidal proteins, such as Cry2 proteins, have been shown to exhibit insecticidal activity toward lepidopteran and to dipteran species. However, it is unusual for Bt strains to exhibit such broad host range biological activity. In addition, the insecticidal bioactivity displayed by specific Bt proteins has been demonstrated to arise from the expression of genes located on extrachromosomal megadalton virulence plasmids. Therefore, it was suspected that the solution to the unusual activity spectrum displayed by these particular BT strains could be found within the primary nucleotide sequence structure of one or more of the plasmids present in these strains. Therefore, megadalton plasmids from each of these strains were purified and plasmid libraries were constructed from each purified megadalton plasmid and the nucleotide sequence of the inserted DNA's were identified using a genomics shotgun sequencing approach.

The following procedures for preparation of EG5858 cells and for field inversion gel electrophoresis were developed to resolve and isolate the large virulence plasmids present in strain EG5858. Plasmids were isolated and subject to similar treatments with the other two strains identified herein.

Plasmid was isolated from a sporulated culture of EG5858 that was inoculated into 2 mL of T broth (Sigma catalog T9179, Sigma, St. Louis, Mo.) in a sterile 12 mL tube and shaken at 250 rpm, 30° C. for 17 hours. Two-hundred μL of the culture was centrifuged, the supernatant discarded, and the cell pellet resuspended in 100 μL of TESL buffer (20% w/v sucrose, 20 mM Tris.HCl pH 7, 1 mM EDTA, 2 mg/mL lysozyme, 30 μg/mL Rnase A). The cells were incubated at 37° C. for 40 min. with occasional gentle shaking. An 80 mL 0.6% w/v agarose gel was prepared with 0.5×TBE (45 mM Tris, 45 mM boric acid, 1 mM EDTA disodium, pH 8) in a Bio-Rad CHEF Mapper® Cell according to the manufacturers instructions (Bio-Rad Laboratories, Hercules, Calif.). The agarose gel was exposed to a pre-run field inversion electrophoresis in 0.5×TBE with the following parameters: refrigeration 14° C.; buffer circulation speed 1,300 mL/min.; program setting 180° field inversion; forward voltage gradient at 8.0 V/cm; initial forward switch time at 1.6 seconds; final forward switch time at 2.4 seconds; reverse voltage at 8 V/cm; initial reverse switch time at 0.4 seconds; and final reverse switch time at 0.6 seconds. A total of running time was 10 min. Fifteen microliters of TESSB buffer (20% w/v sucrose, 20 mM Tris HCl pH 7, 1 mM EDTA, 4% w/v sodium dodecyl sulfate, 0.3 mg/mL bromophenol blue) was loaded into each well of the gel and incubated 30 minutes without applying a voltage and without buffer recirculation. The TESSB buffer was blown out of each well with a pipet and 8 μL fresh TESSB buffer was added to each well. Eight microliters of the cell suspension in TESL buffer was loaded into each well such that the cells gently came into contact with the previously loaded TESSB buffer. The gel was exposed to field inversion electrophoresis in 0.5×TBE for five hours with the following parameters: refrigeration 14° C.; initial buffer circulation speed 100 mL/min. for 20 min. then 1,300 mL/min. for remainder of electrophoresis; program setting 1800 field inversion; forward voltage gradient at 8.0 V/cm; initial forward switch time is 1.6 seconds; final forward switch time is 2.4 seconds; reverse voltage at 8 V/cm; initial reverse switch time is 0.4 seconds; and final reverse switch time is 0.6 seconds. The gel was stained after electrophoresis for 30 min. with gentle shaking in 100 mL 0.5×TBE, 1× GelStar® staining solution (Cambrex Bio Sciences). The gel was rinsed 5 min. with deionized water and was placed on a low intensity UV transilluminator. Gel pieces containing plasmid bands were excised with a scalpel. Each gel piece was placed inside a separate 6000-8000 molecular weight cutoff dialysis membrane tube, 0.5×TBE buffer was added to cover the each piece, and each membrane was sealed with plastic clips. Each membrane was submerged in 0.5×TBE buffer in an electrophoresis apparatus. A current of 2.2 V/cm was applied for 3.5 hours. The buffer was removed from each dialysis membrane and transferred to a centrifuge tube. One-tenth volume 3 M sodium acetate pH 5.4 and one volume isopropanol were added, mixed chilled on ice for several minutes, and then centrifuged at 13,000×g for 30 minutes. The supernatant was carefully decanted from each tube leaving behind a small plasmid pellet. Three milliliters of 70% v/v ethanol were added to each tube and centrifuged a 13,000×g for 5 minutes. The 70% ethanol was carefully decanted from each tube and each small plasmid pellet was allowed to stand inverted for 10 minutes. Each plasmid pellet was resuspended into 50 μL 10 mM Tris-HCl pH 8 buffer and stored at 4 C.

An alternative method that also provided satisfactory results employed standard electrophoresis conditions and a 0.6% agarose gel prepared in 1×TBE (1×TBE=89 mM Tris toborate, pH approx. 8.3, 2 mM EDTA) buffer. B. thuringiensis cultures were inoculated into 2 mL Terrific broth (Sigma) in 12 mL culture tubes and incubated at 30° C. with shaking (250 rpm) for 20 hours. Using a Bio-Rad Protean II® gel electrophoresis apparatus or similar device, a 0.6% agarose gel with the dimensions 16×20×0.3 cm (or approximate equivalent size) was prepared in 1×TBE and cast using a comb with five teeth of 2.4 cm×0.3 cm dimensions. Using 1×TBE as the running buffer, the agarose gel was pre-run at 110V for 10 min. Two-hundred fifty microliters of TSB (5% sucrose/1×TBE/2% SDS/0.05% bromophenol blue) were added to each well and allowed to sit at room temperature for approximately 20 min. The TSB was blown out of the wells with a pipet to eliminate all gel fragments from the wells. Another 250 μL TSB were added to each well and allowed to stand for an additional 20 min. Concurrently, 1 mL aliquots of the overnight B. thuringiensis cultures were centrifuged in a microtube for 1 min., the supernatants discarded, and the cell pellets resuspended in 400 μL TSL (20% sucrose, 20 mM Tris pH 8, 1 mM EDTA, 2 mg/mL lysozyme, 10 ug/mL RNAse A). The suspended cells were incubated at 37° C. for 60 minutes with occasional inversion to keep the cells in suspension. Following this incubation period, 150 μL of the cell suspensions were gently pipetted underneath the TSB solution in the gel wells. Gel electrophoresis was conducted at 25V/4 mA for 1 hour, followed by 60V/10 mA for 30 minutes, followed by 110V/22 mA for 5.5 hours. The agarose gel was immersed for 30 minutes with gentle rocking in 150 mL 1× GelStar® in 1×TBE, then rinsed in water. The plasmid bands were visualized in a darkroom using a low-intensity UV transilluminator and excised from the gel. Gel slices were stored separately in 12 mL tubes at −20° C. Plasmid DNAs were purified from the gel slices using a Qiaex II purification kit and protocol described by the manufacturer (Qiagen, Valencia, Calif.).

Example 2

This example illustrates the preparation of libraries from the mega dalton sized plasmids purified from B. thuringiensis strains.

Libraries were constructed from the purified B. thuringiensis plasmid DNA using a procedure that incorporates random priming, PCR amplification and ligation independent cloning. The purified plasmid DNA was heat denatured and annealed to a redundant oligonucleotide primer composition in which each primer consisted of a uridine-rich cohesive 5′ terminal sequence followed by nine random nucleotides at the 3′ end. Random primers anneal to the plasmid DNA and are extended using Klenow enzyme. A 20 μL reaction was set up with 6 ng of various plasmid DNA isolated from strain EG5858 containing 2 μL of Klenow 10× buffer, 1 mM dNTPs, 50 ng primer and deionized water to a final volume of 19 μL. The reaction mix was heated to 93° C. for 3 minutes and immediately chilled on ice for 2 minutes. Five units (1 μL) of Klenow enzyme were added to the reaction on ice and then incubated in a thermal cycler for 25 minutes at 25° C., 30 minutes at 37° C. and 5 minutes at 50° C. The reaction was then heated to 93° C. for 3 minutes and placed on ice for 2 minutes. An additional 0.5 μL of Klenow 10× buffer, 3.5 μL of deionized water and 1 μL (5 units) of Klenow enzyme was added to the reaction on ice. The reaction was again incubated in a thermal cycler for 25 minutes at 25° C., 30 minutes at 37° C. and 5 minutes at 50° C. A population of amplicons were produced using this method which contain cohesive termini at both ends. The products of the reaction were purified using a QIAquick® PCR Purification Kit (Qiagen) following the manufacturer's protocol and eluted with 50 μL of 10 mM Tris-HCl, pH 8.5.

The amplicons produced using the method above were then amplified further in a 100 μL thermal amplification reaction volume containing, 10 μL of 10×PCR buffer, 2 mM MgCl₂, 0.5M Betaine, 1 uM PCR primer, 0.2 mM dNTPs, 10 μL of the eluted DNA template and 5 units of Taq Polymerase Enzyme. The reaction was incubated in a thermal cycler for 3 minutes at 94° C., followed by 10 cycles of 94° C. for 1 minutes, 50° C. for 1 minutes and 72° C. for 3 minutes. An additional 20 cycles were performed at 94° C. for 1 minutes, 45° C. for 1 minutes and 72° C. for 3 minutes. A final incubation at 72° C. for 10 minutes completed the amplification process. A total of about 380 ng of product was obtained from this reaction.

Plasmid libraries were produced using pUC19. The plasmid vector was linearized with BglII restriction endonucleases and dephosphorylated. A phosphorylated nucleotide primer as set forth in SEQ ID NO:21 was used as a ligation primer and mixed with the linearized plasmid, partially overlapping with the dephosphorylated BglII overhanging ends. The plasmid and primer were mixed together and ligated overnight at 16° C. in the presence of 2.5% PEG 8000, the then gel purified after extraction with an equal volume of phenol:chloroform:isoamyl alcohol (25:24:1).

Plasmid libraries were prepared in a 15 μL reaction containing 1.5 μL of 10× Uracil-DNA Glycosylase (UDG) buffer, 22.8 ng of amplification product, 56 ng of the adapter ligated vector and 2 units of UDG (New England Biolabs). The reaction was incubated for 3 hours at 37° C. The reaction was then precipitated and resuspended in 5 μL of 1×UDG buffer. DH10B electrocompetent cells (Invitrogen) were transformed with 1 μL of the resuspended reaction. A titer of 100,000 colony-forming units (CFU) was obtained from this transformation. DNA sequencing of the positive clones was performed on an Applied Biosystems 3730xl DNA Analyzer, using Big Dye® Terminator v3.0. Base-calling of sequencing traces was accomplished using Phred (0.000925.c), assembled with Phrap (0.990319) and edited in Consed (13.0, 030425).

Amino acid sequences deduced from open reading frames present in the nucleotide sequences obtained from the plasmid inserts were compared to amino acid sequences in the non-redundant protein database (“NRAA”) using the program BLASTX (Gish and States, Nat. Genet. 3(3):266-272, 1993). Numerous partial open reading frames were identified in the nucleotide sequences within the inserted DNA in the plasmid library. Deduced amino acid sequences exhibited similarity to proteins previously observed to be expressed only from genes present in gram-negative entomopathogenic bacteria such as Photorhabdus species, Xenorhabdus species, Serratia entomophila, and in Yersinia pestis. The top BLASTX hits from these comparisons were to Photorhabdus species proteins such as TcaA, TcaB, TcaC, and TccC as well as homologs of these proteins previously identified in Serratia, Xenorhabdus, and Yersinia species. However, none of the deduced amino acid sequences exhibiting similarity to these Tc protein homologs exhibited an amino acid sequence similarity greater than 50% to any of the previously known Tc proteins, suggesting that these Bt amino acid sequences are at best only distantly related.

Example 3

This example illustrates the identification of insecticidal protein coding sequences from the plasmid sequences cloned in Example 2.

The complete open reading frames encoding the homologous sequences for each of the proteins identified in Example 2 were obtained using thermal amplification procedures, essentially walking out from the sequences first identified in Example 2. Nucleotide sequences as set forth in SEQ ID NO:1 from EG5858 were identified as open reading frames encoding the proteins designated herein as TIC813, TIC814, TIC816, TIC817, and TIC818 respectively. The deduced amino acid sequences from each of these nucleotide sequences is set forth respectively at SEQ ID NO:2, SEQ ID NO:3, SEQ ID NO:4, SEQ ID NO:5, and SEQ ID NO:6. TIC813 exhibited about 39% amino acid sequence identity to Photorhabdus species TcaA protein (GenBank Accession No. AAC38623), TIC814 exhibited about 49% amino acid sequence identity to Photorhabdus species TcaB protein (GenBank Accession No. AAC38624), TIC816 exhibited about 43% amino acid sequence identity to Photorhabdus species TcaC protein (GenBank Accession No. AAC38625), TIC817 exhibited about 34% amino acid sequence identity to Photorhabdus species TccC protein (GenBank Accession No. AAC38630), and TIC818 exhibited about 43% amino acid sequence identity also to Photorhabdus species TccC protein (GenBank Accession No. AAC38630).

As a consequence of the thermal amplification methods used to identify the complete open reading frame for each of the TC protein homologs, sequence analysis of the aligned amplicon sequences revealed a large gene cluster form which all five of the TIC proteins are apparently expressed in a single polycistronic operon. Surprisingly, the arrangement of the coding sequences within this operon is substantially similar to the arrangement of the genes encoding the Photorhabdus species TC proteins. The 5′ region of the tcaA-like gene and the 3′ end of the tccC-like gene, defining the 5′ and 3′ ends of the gene cluster, respectively, were amplified and cloned using an inverse PCR strategy. Briefly, EG5858 genomic DNA (0.1 μg/μL) was digested with the restriction endonuclease EcoRI at 37° C. for 2 hours and then incubated at 70° C. for 20 min. to inactivate the restriction enzyme. The restricted DNA fragments were diluted to 0.01 μg/μL and ligated together with T4 ligase at 4° C. overnight. The ligation products served as the template for a PCR using the Elongase kit and protocols provided by Invitrogen. Each PCR included 100 ng template DNA and employed the following cycling parameters for 35 cycles: 94° C., 2 min.; 92° C., 10 sec.; 50° C., 30 sec.; and 68° C., 15 min. The amplified DNA fragments were cloned into the TOPO-TA vector pCR2.1 (Invitrogen) and sequenced to obtain the remainder of the tcaA-like coding region.

A similar inverse PCR reaction was used to amplify and clone a ˜8 kb HindIII fragment that includes the 3′ end of the EG5858 tccC-like gene. In this instance, the EG5858 DNA was digested with HindIII rather than EcoRI. The amplified DNA fragments were cloned into the TOPO-TA vector pCR2.1 (Invitrogen) and sequenced to obtain the remaining 3′ sequence of the tccC-like gene. The derived sequences were assembled with the existing sequences to generate a contiguous nucleotide sequence comprising a cluster of five genes, encoding from 5′ to 3′, proteins with sequence similarity to the TcaA-, TcaB-, TcaC-, TccC-like genes of Photorhabdus luminescens. These genes have been designated herein as tic813, tic814, tic816, tic817 and tic818 and proteins encoded by these genes have been designated as TIC813, TIC814, TIC816, TIC817 and TIC818, respectively. The relationship of these genes isolated from the EG5858 is illustrated in FIG. 1. The complete polynucleotide sequence of the gene cluster is set forth in SEQ ID NO:1.

A related gene was identified and isolated from B. thuringiensis strain EG4332 using the methods similar to those developed for EG5858. The related gene was determined to exhibit similarity to P. luminescens tcaB and was designated as tic815. The amino acid sequence deduced from the tic815 ORF was designated as TIC815.

Example 4

This example illustrates the identification of insecticidal coding sequences from EG4096.

B. thuringiensis strain EG4096 contained two large plasmids of ˜60- and ˜150 kb, each of which contained a copy of a gene encoding ET29 (Cyt2Ca1) (WO 97/17507). DNA from these two toxin plasmids were isolated using procedures described in Example 1 and used to construct libraries as described in Example 2. The nucleotide sequences obtained from the plasmid sequence analysis were used to search the NRAA database using the program BLASTX. Numerous plasmid sequences were identified that encoded protein sequences displaying amino acid sequence identity to insecticidal proteins from gram-negative bacteria such as Photorhabdus luminescens, Xenorhabdus nematophila, Serratia entomophila, and Yersinia pestis. The top BLASTX hits from these searches included the tcaA, tcaB, tcaC, and tccC proteins from Photorhabdus luminescens as well as homologs of these proteins found in Xenorhabdus, Serratia, and Yersinia species.

Assembly of the EG4096 nucleotide sequences yielded incomplete coding regions. Nucleotide sequences corresponding to the 5′ and 3′ ends of the ORF'S exhibiting a relationship to tcaA, tcaB, and tcaC genes were identified using TFASTA alignments to the Photorhabdus homologs. Based on this sequence data, oligonucleotide primers were designed to amplify and clone the complete coding regions for the as well as flanking nucleotide sequences for these partial ORF's using an inverse PCR cloning strategy. In this manner, the order of the genes within an operon could be deduced as well.

Primers were used to amplify and clone the tcaA homologous gene into the directional expression vector pET101/D-TOPO® expression vector (Invitrogen). The 5′ “cacc” sequence of pr380 was provided for base-pairing with and directional cloning into the pET101/D-TOPO® vector. The tcaA homologous gene is designated as tic904 and the protein encoded the ORF as TIC904.

Primers were used to amplify and clone the tcaB homologous gene into the directional expression vector pET101/D-TOPO® expression vector (Invitrogen). The 5′ “cacc” sequence of pr842 was provided for base-pairing with and directional cloning into the pET101/D-TOPO® vector. The tcaB homologous gene was designated as tic905 and the protein encoded by the ORF as TIC905.

Primers were used to amplify and clone the tcaC homologous gene into the directional expression vector pET101/D-TOPO® expression vector (Invitrogen). The 5′ cacc sequence of pr854 provides for base-pairing with and directional cloning into the pET101/D-TOPO® vector. The tcaC homologous gene was designated as tic906 and the protein encoded by the ORF as TIC906.

The nucleotide sequences for the tic904 (SEQ ID NO:10), tic905 (SEQ ID NO:12), and tic906 (SEQ ID NO:14) genes were determined by sequencing multiple clones. The TIC904, TIC905, and TIC906 coding sequences were organized in an operon or gene cluster with the gene order being 5′ tic904-tic905-tic906 3′. The protein sequences were each compared to their corresponding Photorhabdus homolog and the percentage amino acid sequence identities determined. The EG4096 proteins shared only 39-50% amino acid sequence identity with the Photorhabdus tca homologous proteins. Pairwise sequence comparisons between the EG5858 and EG4332 related insecticidal proteins showed substantial sequence identity. For example, the amino acid sequence of TIC814 isolated from EG5858 is identical to that of TIC815 isolated from EG4332. Pairwise sequence comparisons between the EG4096 and EG5858 proteins demonstrated significant sequence diversity. TIC813 appeared to be most closely related to TIC904 yet these only exhibited about 61% amino acid sequence identity. TIC814 appeared to be most closely related to TIC905 yet these exhibited only about 63 amino acid sequence identity. Discounting the identity between TIC814 and TIC815, the strongest identity existed between TIC816 and TIC906 in which these exhibited only about 68% amino acid sequence identity.

Example 5

This example illustrates the identification, cloning and expression of TIC912 from EG4096, a protein that exhibits similarity to a TccC3 protein expressed in Photorhabdus luminescens.

Overlapping DNA sequences from the large plasmid of B. thuringiensis strain EG4096 revealed an open reading frame, designated tic912 (SEQ ID NO:16), whose deduced amino acid sequence (TIC912 as set forth at SEQ ID NO:17) exhibited about 43% identity to a Photorhabdus luminescens insecticidal protein TccC3. Two DNA primers corresponding to the 5′ and 3′ ends of the tic912 coding sequence were used to PCR amplify the tic912 ORF from EG4096 total genomic DNA. The amplicon was cloned into the expression vector pET101/D-TOPO (Invitrogen) yielding plasmids pMON74072 and pMON74100. pMON74072 contains the unaltered tic912 gene. pMON74100 contains the tic912 gene with a 6×HIS (six histidine residues) coding sequence linked in frame to the 3′ end of tic912 coding sequence, which when expressed in E. coli, would produce a fusion protein consisting of TIC912-HIS₆. An advantage of expression of TIC912-HIS₆ in pMON74100 is that soluble TIC912-HIS₆ protein may be produced and purified over a nickel column. E. coli cells harboring pMON74100 produced TIC912-HIS₆ in inclusion bodies but did not produce TIC912-HIS₆ in a soluble form. The TIC912-HIS₆ inclusion bodies have not been found to exhibit insecticidal activity.

Example 6

This example illustrates the expression of the insecticidal protein coding sequences described in Examples 1-4.

The expression of individual B. thuringiensis genes set forth herein may be accomplished by a variety of means known in the art. Using the nucleotide sequences determined for each gene, oligonucleotide primers may be designed that enable the amplification of these genes from B. thuringiensis genomic or plasmid DNA and the cloning of these genes into appropriate vectors for expression in B. thuringiensis (e.g. Baum et al., Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 56:3420-3428, 1990). High-fidelity thermostable polymerases may be used to reduce the frequency of errors generated during the amplification process. Appropriate restriction endonuclease sites may be incorporated at the ends of the amplified DNA to facilitate cloning into specialized vectors. The native promoters for the genes may be used to direct the transcription of these genes in B. thuringiensis or, alternatively, cry gene promoters may be used (Baum and Malvar, Mol. Microbiol. 18:1-12, 1995). Recombinant strains expressing these genes may be grown under a variety of different culture conditions to optimize the production of individual or multiple proteins. Insecticidal proteins of the present invention that form inclusion bodies within B. thuringiensis may be recovered and partially purified by discontinuous sucrose gradient centrifugation. Recombinant proteins bearing a C-terminal HIS-tag fusion may be purified using a nickel-charged resin.

The B. thuringiensis proteins of the present invention were expressed in heterologous hosts such as E. coli. pET Directional TOPO® vectors (Invitrogen) such as pET100/D-TOPO®, pET101/D-TOPO®, and pET102/D-TOPO® were used for convenient cloning and expression in E. coli. Protein bands corresponding to the TIC904, TIC905, and TIC906 proteins could be visualized by Coomassie blue staining after resolution in an SDS gel.

Similar strategies can be employed to express the tic genes of the present invention in alternative expression vector systems such as the pBAD Directional TOPO® vectors that allow modulation of induction conditions (Invitrogen). Alternatively, the genes in B. thuringiensis may be disrupted using procedures that employ homologous recombination to generate deletions or insertions within the target gene as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,759,538. B. thuringiensis strains containing knockouts of specific genes such as those of the present invention can then be assessed in insect bioassay to determine the contribution of specific genes towards insecticidal activity.

Example 7

Detection of sequences homologous to the sequences identified in Examples 1-5.

Oligonucleotide primers were designed for use in thermal amplification reactions to identify homologs of the genes of the present invention isolated from B. thuringiensis strains EG4096, EG4332, and EG5858. Full length nucleotide sequences for the B. thuringiensis genes were aligned with the full length nucleotide sequence of the most closely related gram negative species homolog using the multiple sequence alignment program ClustalW (Higgins et al. Nucleic Acids Res. 22:4673-4680, 1994). Regions of nucleotide sequence conservation were noted and used to design oligonucleotide primers for thermal amplification-based screening. Total DNA was isolated from B. thuringiensis strains and used as a template for thermal amplification reactions. Alternatively, B. thuringiensis strains may be grown under culture conditions that provide vegetative cells suitable for inclusion in a thermal amplification reaction as a source of DNA template. Vegetative B. thuringiensis cells can be lysed at 94° C., releasing total DNA that serves as a template for DNA amplification. The examples provided below illustrate how large numbers of B. thuringiensis strains may be screened in a thermal amplification reaction for homologs of B. thuringiensis genes of the present invention using oligonucleotide primers specific for the B. thuringiensis genes. Primers sufficient for such screening include nucleotide sequences of from about 15 to about 50 or more contiguous nucleotides selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NO:1 within the coding region of any of the open reading frames encoding TIC813, TIC814, TIC816, TIC817, and TIC818; SEQ ID NO:8, SEQ ID NO:10, SEQ ID NO:12, and SEQ ID NO:14.

Example 8

This example illustrates evaluations of the insecticidal proteins of the present invention.

Recombinant strains producing the proteins of the present invention are grown under inducing conditions and protein production assessed by SDS polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Spent cultures of the recombinant strains may be used directly in insect bioassay or, alternatively, the expressed proteins may be purified or partially purified as desired. Mixtures of different protein preparations, whether purified or not, may then be tested in insect bioassay to identify the optimal protein composition for insecticidal activity. The proteins of the present invention, alone or in combination, may also be tested for insecticidal activity by microinjection into insect larvae, for instance, as described by Lee et al. (Biochem. Biophys. Res. Comm. 319:1110-1116, 2004).

Bioassays for coleopteran insect pests may be conducted as follows, using Southern corn rootworm (SCR, Diabrotica undecimpunctata howardi) and Western corn rootworm (WCR, Diabrotica virgifera virgifera) as examples. The bioassays may be performed via surface inoculation of an artificial diet (Marrone et al., J. Econ. Entomol. 78:290-293, 1985), but without formalin. Protein actives may be prepared in a diluent (an aqueous 0.005% Triton X-100® solution) and applied to the surface of the diet. After the diluent has dried, first instar larvae are placed on the diet and incubated at 28° C. Typically, thirty-two larvae are tested per concentration. Mortality is scored after 5-7 days using the diluent-only treatment as the untreated check.

Two different bioassays may be run with Western corn rootworm (WCR) larvae. For the first WCR bioassay protocol, 200 mL of WCR diet is prepared in a manner similar to that described by Pleau et al. (Entomol. Exp. Appl. 105:1-11, 2002). Dilutions of the test samples are prepared using water as a diluent and as an untreated control. Twenty-five microliters of the test sample are applied per well. Plates are allowed to dry before adding insect larvae. One WCR neonate larva is added per well with a fine paintbrush. Plates are sealed with mylar and ventilated using an insect pin. Twenty-four larvae are tested per concentration. The bioassay plates are incubated at a 27° C., 60% RH, in complete darkness for 5-7 days. The number of surviving larvae per concentration is recorded at the end of the experiment. The masses of the surviving larvae are recorded on a suitable microbalance (Cahn C-33). Data are analyzed using JMP® 4 statistical software (SAS Institute, Cary, N.C., USA). Levene's test for homogeneity of variances is conducted on each data set and, where a significant lack of homogeneity is detected, masses are log transformed. General linear regressions are performed on the data sets to look for concentration-response effects. In an alternative WCR bioassay, protein actives are prepared in a diluent [10 mM Tris-HCl (pH 7.0), 0.1 mM EDTA, 0.005% Triton X-100®, 50 ug/mL rifamycin] and 20 uL applied to the surface of the WCR artificial diet (without formalin), dispensed in 200 uL aliquots in 96-well plates. After the diluent has dried, one neonate WCR larva is added per well with a fine paintbrush and the plates covered with a perforated mylar seal. Twenty-four larvae are tested per concentration. The bioassay plates are incubated at a 27° C., 60% RH, in complete darkness for 5-7 days. Mortality is scored and the masses of the surviving larvae recorded using a microbalance.

Procedures for conducting insect bioassays for lepidopteran insect pests are known in the art. Examples of lepidopteran bioassay protocols are described in Chambers et al. (J. Bacteriol. 173:3966-3976, 1991) and Von Tersch et al. (Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 57:349-358, 1991) and in U.S. Pat. No. 5,942,658.

All of the materials and methods disclosed and claimed herein can be made and used without undue experimentation as instructed by the above disclosure. Although the materials and methods of this invention have been described in terms of preferred embodiments and illustrative examples, it will be apparent to those of skill in the art that variations may be applied to the materials and methods described herein without departing from the concept, spirit and scope of the invention. All such similar substitutes and modifications apparent to those skilled in the art are deemed to be within the spirit, scope and concept of the invention as defined by the appended claims. 

1. An isolated nucleotide sequence encoding a Bacillus thuringiensis strain EG5858 protein, wherein said protein is selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NO:2, SEQ ID NO:3, SEQ ID NO:4, SEQ ID NO:5, and SEQ ID NO:6.
 2. A vector comprising an isolated nucleotide sequence encoding a Bacillus thuringiensis strain EG5858 protein, wherein said protein is selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NO:2, SEQ ID NO:3, SEQ ID NO:4, SEQ ID NO:5, and SEQ ID NO:6.
 3. A host cell transformed with a vector of claim 2, wherein said host cell is selected from the group consisting of a bacterial cell and a plant cell.
 4. The host cell of claim 3 wherein said plant cell is a dicot plant cell or a monocot plant cell.
 5. The host cell of claim 4 wherein said dicot plant cell is selected from the group consisting of a cotton plant cell, a canola plant cell, a soybean plant cell, an alfalfa plant cell, a tree plant cell, a grape plant cell, and a fruit plant cell, and wherein said monocot plant cell is selected from the group consisting of a corn plant cell, a rice plant cell, an oat plant cell, a wheat plant cell, a banana plant cell, and a grass plant cell.
 6. A transgenic plant, said plant having been transformed with a nucleic acid sequence encoding a Bacillus thuringiensis strain EG5858 protein, said protein comprising an amino acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NO:2, SEQ ID NO:3, SEQ ID NO:4, SEQ ID NO:5, and SEQ ID NO:6.
 7. A seed produced from the plant of claim 6, wherein said seed comprises said nucleic acid sequence.
 8. A progeny plant produced from the seed of claim
 7. 